Credit Card Payoff Calculator
Credit card interest compounds monthly on the balance you carry, so paying the minimum can stretch a modest balance across a decade. Enter your cards and see the real timeline, the real interest cost, and which payoff order clears the debt sooner.
Your Cards
Leave a balance at 0 to skip that card. Extra payment is applied on top of all minimums.
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Why the minimum payment is a trap
A card minimum is usually set at roughly 1–3% of the balance, or a small floor amount, whichever is larger. That is deliberately close to the interest being charged. On a $4,800 balance at 22.9% APR, the first month alone adds about $91.60 in interest — so a $120 minimum only removes about $28 of principal. As the balance falls, the minimum falls with it, which is why minimum-only payoff timelines run past a decade.
Avalanche versus snowball, without the cheerleading
Avalanche sends every spare dollar to the card with the highest APR. It is mathematically optimal: it always clears the debt at least as fast and always costs the least interest.
Snowball sends spare dollars to the smallest balance first. It costs more, sometimes only a few dollars, sometimes hundreds. What it buys is a card closing sooner, which some people need to stay with the plan.
This calculator runs both and shows the gap in dollars, so the decision is made on a real number rather than on a slogan. If the gap is small, pick the one you will actually stick to. If the gap is large, the maths should win.
How the maths works
Each month, every card is charged interest of balance × APR / 12.
Minimum payments are applied to all cards; the extra payment goes entirely to
the current target card. When a card clears, its minimum is added to the pool
— this is the part people forget, and it is what makes the last cards
disappear quickly. The model stops at 600 months and reports if the payments
are too small to ever clear the debt.